The Book That Started Everything

There are three things that got me into woodworking. The first is that my Dad is a carpenter and I was around tools my entire life, the second was a simple finger jointed box that I used as a cash box when collecting money from my paper route and the third was a book called Box Making Basics that had this box on the front cover. I started woodworking in the late 90's in my third year of university as a hobby. Small boxes seemed like the perfect place to start since I didn't need a lot of material and they require all the basic skills you need to do fine woodworking.

I made a box just like this for my wife before we got married and now my daughter is old enough to have jewelry lying all over her bed room so it was time to make one for her as well. The construction consists of mitred sides on base that is glued on and the top is a solid panel with a lap jointed frame. This project took about a week of evenings and was made of Sapelle. The big lesson learned on this box was that I need to be more careful with how I store my velvet. It's gotten quite wrinkled and I"m not even sure how to get the wrinkles out. I don't know if I can iron it. The box still turned out great and was a big improvement over the one I did 15 years ago.